Tag Archives: T-Mobile

Most of us travel and use our US carrier to roam while we are in another country or buy a local SIM. There are benefits to both methods, so let’s take a look at the options.

Buy A Local SIM

If you buy a local SIM, you are essentially getting a local number in the country you are in. Most of us don’t care about the local number; we value the high speed data package that comes with the local SIM. This presents a small problem though; if you value making toll free calls to the US or receiving calls on your local number, you won’t be able to do that with a local SIM. You also will not be able to send or receive any text messages from your local US number.

Use Your US Carrier To Roam In Another Country

If you use this method, for example with T-Mobile, depending on your plan, you can likely receive text messages for free on your US number. This can be useful for several reasons: phone calls generally cost a small amount and data is free. The disadvantage to using this setup is the data is usually severely throttled by the foreign carrier and some people find it useless because it is so slow.

Here’s all the news that caught my eye this week – let me know in the comments if I missed something important or helped you find something new!

Airlines + Miles

Air Canada announced they plan to end their contract with Aimia, the company that runs Aeroplan, and launch their own in-house loyalty program in 2020. Many questions remain, including what happens to existing Aeroplan balances and whether the miles will be worth anything after the transition. Aimia’s stock dropped 57% after the announcement. [Toronto Star]

Buenos días everyone. On my last trip to the US, I tried to use the free hour of Gogo in-flight wifi access offered to T-Mobile customers, but couldn’t get the T-Mobile access banner to show up. When I reached out to their chat support team, I was told that the T-Mobile deal is not available on international flights on American Airlines. This was surprising to me, since I’ve taken advantage of it in the past on flights between the US and Mexico City – I thought perhaps this was standard language to keep passengers from expecting to find free wifi on transatlantic and transpacific flights, which mostly use Panasonic Avionics wifi instead of Gogo wifi. However, when I looked at Gogo’s FAQ page, there’s a section that explicitly defines the offer as being available for Gogo-equipped domestic flights: